


Countdown

by Nny



Series: Month 1: Quantity (tumblr fic) [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, Happy Ending, M/M, relationship angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 12:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1778905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles first kisses him it’s clumsy and awkward and he almost gets his nose broken, and the apologies against his mouth are the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. His pulse roars in his ears, loud enough to drown out practically everything else, an uneven unstoppable ticking counting down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Countdown

It feels, sometimes, like he’s got a countdown timer in place of a heart. 

Everything has an expiration date. It wasn’t a difficult lesson to learn but it was a _hard_ one, and just because Derek had learned it early didn’t stop the universe from hammering it home. 

So he doesn’t bother remembering how they met. It’s not a story he’ll need to tell. He doesn’t take time to remember what it is that is said, but he knows that it was raining. Stiles’ long fingers wrapped around the handle of his umbrella isn’t something that’s easily forgotten; the way he’d grinned at Derek impossibly bright against a background of gray.

When Stiles first kisses him it’s clumsy and awkward and he almost gets his nose broken, and the apologies against his mouth are the sweetest thing he’s ever tasted. His pulse roars in his ears, loud enough to drown out practically everything else, an uneven unstoppable ticking counting down. 

 

*

 

“I can’t see you this weekend.” 

Stiles sounds a little out of breath - he’s always late for something, and at only two weeks in it’s way too early for that to provoke the fond smile Derek can’t seem to help. 

“Okay,” he says. He hadn’t even known they were at a point to expect some kind of standing appointment, but he likes the thought. It settles somewhere in his chest, muffles the gentle ticking. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to, okay? I would if I could, but -”

Derek has a calendar on his wall, phases of the moon marked out in red. He doesn’t need it; it was a family tradition. 

“It’s fine, Stiles,” he says. It is, actually, perfect; this way he doesn’t have to think about an excuse. “I can keep myself occupied.” 

“Yeah?” Stiles says, and he’s smiling now, Derek can hear it. His voice is slipping into that low register that’s already connected directly to the hairs on the back of Derek’s neck, a Pavlovian response in his dick. “How’s that?” 

“Read some, maybe work out a little.” 

Stiles hums softly into the phone. “What are we talking, here? Shirt and basketball shorts? Gold lamé track suit? Just yoga pants?”

Derek chokes out a laugh. “What the hell, Stiles?” 

“So sue me, I’m a visual learner. I demand context. Do you work out shirtless? Oh god, you do, don’t you? Man, what I wouldn’t give for a conveniently-located apartment and a telephoto l- Dad!” Stiles yelps, and drops his phone. 

Derek can’t stop laughing. 

(But tucked away in the back of his mind somewhere is resentment of the full moon for wasting some of his time). 

 

*

 

Derek thinks about it, sometimes. About what it’d be like to tell him. 

On the face of it it’s a perfect relationship. It’s maybe the first time that Derek hasn’t started to feel claustrophobic by this point - Stiles is busy enough that they hang out mostly in the evenings, curled up together with take out and shitty TV, and the sex - the sex is pretty phenomenal. 

It’s the first time he’s regularly woken up with another person, over-warm and pinned in uncomfortable positions, sleepy stale-breathed kisses before Stiles heads off to work. It’s the first time since - since before, that he’s wanted to mutter soft truths into someone’s ear and trust that they’ll still want to stay. 

Logically, he knows that not everyone is like Kate. He can intellectually recognise that there are humans who accept the existence of werewolves, who live alongside them, who join their packs. He’s pretty sure, on some distant branch of the family tree, he even has human cousins. 

With Stiles, reasonably, it ought to be even less of a risk, what with the amount of crap he watches on Syfy, and that show with the weirdly co-dependent brothers, and some of the reading matter Derek has found lying around his bedroom. One time Stiles had even dragged him to some kind of fan convention where there were people painted gray and people with wands and people with _tails_. Derek had started talking with a werewolf from Brooklyn, long dark hair and a sharp smile. They were in a deep conversation about medicinal herbs when Stiles had pressed against his back, nervous energy in the whole lean length of him, from the chin brushing back and forth against his shoulder to the rhythm tapped unevenly against his stomach. 

“Stiles, James,” Derek said, as polite as he ever was, but Stiles didn’t hold out a hand. 

“No costume?” he’d said instead, a little snide, and James had shrugged and tugged at the hem of his leather jacket. 

”I’m a werewolf,” he said, and Derek’s heart had thumped in his chest hard enough he’d been afraid Stiles would feel it. James grinned. “We look just like everyone else, most of the time.” 

Stiles’ laugh had been a little too loud, jarring in its proximity to Derek’s ear, and he’d changed the subject awkwardly to some book he’d just bought, but it was ground work, at least? It was something to build on. 

But whenever he thinks about it, about the look he’d see on Stiles’ face if he came out and told him, reason and logic and anything intellectual go out the window, and the countdown in his chest ticks on a little faster. 

 

*

 

 _We need to talk._

Seven months, twelve days, five hours in and the countdown starts flashing, the beginning of the inevitable end. 

Derek can’t keep still, tidying the loft for the fifth time, setting coffee cups out ready on the kitchen counter to save himself some time. When the key turns in the lock he’s standing in the middle of the floor with a throw cushion in his hand, his fingers flexing against the dark fabric, and he’s helpless against returning Stiles’ smile. There’s something anxious in the edges of it, though, something tight at the corners of his mouth, and when he kisses back it's perfunctory at best. When long fingers close around Derek’s wrist he follows easily, sits down on the couch and looks up at Stiles, eyes roving across his face and taking him in like this is the last time. 

Stiles takes a deep breath; Derek feels like something is cracking in his chest.

“I want to introduce you to my dad,” Stiles says. 

Derek’s nodding before he’s done, breathless and adrenaline-high and impossibly relieved. A few more hours on the clock, a few days, whatever it is he’ll take it.

“My dad, and - and _Scott_ , and basically everyone I’ve ever met, okay, I want to be able to tell them - but there’s something I have to tell you, first.”

He’s pacing back and forth across the room, fingers pushed through his hair, and he keeps sending awful sideways heartbroken glances and Derek hates whatever’s making him look like that. 

“Stiles -”

“I love you, Derek,” Stiles says, and the tension that Derek’s been holding just slides away from him like it’s never been there.

“I - Stiles, I - of _course_ -”

“No.” Stiles barks out a laugh, his long fingers shaking as they cover his mouth. “No, believe me, that’s not the hard part. I never had any doubts about that part. I was practically picking out color schemes for our wedding about five minutes after we met.”

Derek feels like he’s been punched. Right in the sternum, somewhere that makes it impossible to draw in breath.

“Just -” Stiles is beseeching, “just give me a chance, okay? Before you react. I won’t - I won’t blame you if you -”

He grabs Derek’s hand, hard enough to hurt. 

“Just try to trust me,” he says, eyes fear-filled and desperately intent. 

“I trust you,” Derek says, as honest as he’s ever been, and Stiles lets out another of those harsh laughs. 

“Okay,” Stiles says. “Okay, okay. Okay.” 

He takes in a deep breath through his nose and lets it out in a shaky sigh. His fingers sneak up to tangle in Derek’s sleeve, like that will hold him there, keep him in place after whatever he has to say. 

“Werewolves are real,” he says, heavily, then, “my best friend...what? Derek, _what_?” 

It takes a while for Derek to stop laughing long enough to tell him. But that’s okay. He’s pretty sure they have time.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on tumblr [here](http://villainny.tumblr.com), come say hi!


End file.
